JTL wrote:
> i posted a related question a few days ago and have since upgraded my
> hardware- im hoping to set up my server with the optimal RAID configuration
> for our limited means- we have a shiny-new dell poweredge 2950 server with
> four, 400GB SATA drives. it is running windows server 2003 R2 Enterprise
> x64 and SQL Server 2005 Enterprise x64.
>
> this server will be hosting a sql server database that has an 80GB data file
> which will slowly grow over time. data redundancy is important since this
> machine will be our main data server, however we do have means to rebuild
> our database if we were to lose it- our data is updated just once a day via
> a data import task. i would say that processing power is equally as
> important to us as data redundancy, if not more important.
>
> i am leaning toward a RAID 10 configuration, but being quite the newbie at
> this, i'd love to hear your recommendations.
>
> is it possible to use a combination of RAID levels? for example, i was
> playing with idea of configuring RAID 1 for two of the drives, which would
> store the OS and SQL log files. then configure RAID 0 for the remaining 2
> drives, which would store the SQL data files. but would i need more
> hardware (like a RAID connector/controller??) to do this? and would this be
> better than just throwing all disks into a RAID10 array?
>
> anyways- any and all is much appreciated-
>
> thanks!
>
> JTL
>
>

Does your question imply, that you do not have RAID controller? In that
case, RAID 1 and RAID 10 can be quite slow for reading. But with
controller, RAID 10 seems suitable solution for all files. Or as you
said, RAID 1 for log files. But I don't see any reason to put RAID 0 for
the database files, since most I/O goes to the log files, right? Two
separate disks or JBOD seems better.

--
Arto Viitanen, CSC Ltd.
Espoo, Finland